VERDIANA PATACCHINI
ARTIST STATEMENT
My practice explores the tension between appearance and essence, reality and illusion, between classical symbolism and contemporary imagination. Irony and subversion become ways to challenge monumentality and delicacy.
In my Deceitful figures series, sculpture becomes an illusion: the works appear three-dimensional but are, in fact, flat. Layers of pigment-painted paper are torn, reassembled, and composed through chiaroscuro to model form and simulate volume. These fragile surfaces recall classical reliefs and time-worn frescoes, yet they are made from ephemeral materials—paper, wood, ceramic—suggesting that monumentality is only a mirage and that time is not linear, but fluid, unstable, and continuously rewritten.
BIOGRAPHY
Verdiana Patacchini (Virdi) is a New York–based artist, born and raised in Italy in the Tuscia region and now a naturalized American, whose practice spans painting, sculpture, and ceramics, engaging with themes of illusion, material fragility, ornament, and collective memory.
She holds a BFA in Painting and an MFA in Contemporary Art Heritage from the Accademia di Belle Arti of Via Ripetta in Rome. Her work has been exhibited internationally at galleries and institutions including the Consulate General of Italy in New York, Central Park Tower, Kristen Lorello Gallery, Room 57 Gallery, and Future Fair. Her work was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal as a highlight of Future Fair 2023. She was a finalist of the 2023 Italian Tri-State Art Prize, awarded by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York under a committee led by Massimiliano Gioni.
